Implementing SAFe Practice Consultant SPC 6.0 Exam Questions

Domain 1: Thriving in the Digital Age and Business Agility

SAFe is a dual-operating system for Business Agility. What is one element of the dual-operating system?

⬜ A Lean portfolio
⬜ Agile Teams
✅ Value Stream Network
⬜ Solution Context

Which core competency of the Lean Enterprise helps drive Built-In Quality practices?

✅ Team and Technical Agility
⬜ DevOps and Release on Demand
⬜ Lean Portfolio Management
⬜ Business Solutions and Lean Systems Engineering

Which SAFe core competency supports coordination across multiple ARTs?

⬜ Lean Portfolio Management
⬜ Agile Product Delivery
⬜ Lean-Agile Leadership
✅ Enterprise Solution Delivery

Domain 2: Becoming a Lean-Agile Leader

What is “precisely specify value by specific product” central to?

✅ Lean Thinking
⬜ SAFe Principles
⬜ Agile Manifesto
⬜ SAFe Core Values

‘Visualize work’ aligns with which SAFe Core Value?

⬜ Respect for People
⬜ Relentless Improvement
✅ Transparency
⬜ Alignment

In SAFe Principle #1, how are lead time, product cost, value, and development expense used?

⬜ To recover money already spent
✅ To identify and evaluate economic trade-offs when making daily decisions
⬜ To take into account sunk costs
⬜ To limit work in process (WIP) through the system

A Scrum Master asked you to help her use systems thinking to identify the backlog items that would improve the system as a whole. Select one item that uses systems thinking most effectively.

✅ Involve representatives of department teams in Iteration Planning and Demos.
⬜ Make daily stand-ups more engaging and strictly timeboxed.
⬜ Review the burn-down chart at each retrospective to improve team estimating.
⬜ Increase unit test coverage.

According to SAFe Principle #10, what should the Enterprise do when markets and customers demand change?

⬜ Create a reliable, decision-making framework to empower employees and ensure a fast flow of value
✅ Reorganize the network around the new value flow
⬜ Apply development cadence and synchronization to operate effectively and manage uncertainty
⬜ Create an initiative to focus on accelerating the flow of value

Domain 3: Establishing Team and Technical Agility

What are two ways to describe a cross-functional Agile Team? (Choose two.)

✅ They are optimized for communication and delivery of value
⬜ They deliver value every six weeks
⬜ They are made up of members, each of whom can define, develop, test, and deploy the system
✅ They can define, build, and test an increment of value
⬜ They release customer products to production continuously

Which basic Agile quality practice ensures consistent quality measures for each work product?

⬜ Workflow automation
⬜ Pairing and peer-review
⬜ Collective ownership
✅ Standards and Definition of Done

What is one organizing attribute that teams share with the other teams on their ART?

⬜ Prioritization across all backlogs
⬜ Simultaneous release in one pipeline
⬜ Facilitation techniques amongst all meetings
✅ Synchronization to a common cadence

What is one benefit of organizing an ART using the “platform” ART topology?

⬜ It helps identify dependencies and bottlenecks
✅ It reduces cognitive load on other teams
⬜ It is effective for parts of the system that depend on specialist knowledge
⬜ It aligns with the existing organizational structure

Domain 4: Building Solutions with Agile Product Delivery

What is Customer Centricity?

⬜ A solution that delights customers
⬜ A set of tools for building empathy with customers
⬜ A process for better understanding customer needs
✅ A mindset that focuses on the customer

Which of the following is often a cause of too much work in process (WIP)?

⬜ All teams on the ART are cross-functional
⬜ Teams do not task-switch well
✅ Features in the ART Backlog are defined for each layer of the system
⬜ The Stories are too small

What is the primary purpose of the management meeting at the end of Day 1 of PI Planning?

⬜ To assign business value to the teams’ draft PI Objectives.
✅ To make adjustments to the PI scope and address program challenges.
⬜ To design the next generation of the product.
⬜ To evaluate the performance of teams.

The Innovation and Planning (IP) Iteration allows time for which of the following activities?

⬜ Architectural Runway implementation
⬜ Creating Strategic Themes
⬜ Fixing deferred defects
✅ Continuing education

During PI Planning, which statement is true about the activities of team breakouts?

✅ In team breakout #2, teams work to create their final plans
⬜ In team breakout #2, teams establish a draft of their business objectives
⬜ In team breakout #1, teams finalize ART PI Risks, impediments, and dependencies
⬜ In team breakout #1, teams meet with Business Owners to assign business value

Domain 5: Exploring Lean Portfolio Management

Which dimension of Lean Portfolio Management (LPM) supports ART execution?

✅ Agile portfolio operations
⬜ Strategy and investment funding
⬜ Value Stream coordination
⬜ Lean governance

Which of the following tools helps identify strategic options to create a better future state for the Portfolio?

✅ TOWS
⬜ SWOT
⬜ Portfolio Canvas
⬜ Portfolio Kanban

In a SAFe Portfolio, what defines the development Value Streams, the Solutions they deliver, and the customers they serve?

⬜ Portfolio Kanban
✅ Portfolio Canvas
⬜ Portfolio Vision
⬜ Portfolio Roadmap

Which of the following is one way that Lean budget guardrails guide Value Stream investment decisions?

⬜ Empowering the Product Owners to sequence the Solution Train Backlog
⬜ Prioritizing work by return on investment
⬜ Planning work based on time criticality
✅ Establishing capacity allocation

Which process is used for Epics to accelerate learning and development and reduce risk?

⬜ Creating a Lean business case
⬜ Applying weighted shortest job first (WSJF)
⬜ Defining non-functional requirements (NFRs)
✅ Using the SAFe Lean Startup cycle

Domain 6: Leading the Change

What is one way Lean-Agile leaders lead by example?

⬜ By applying empathic design and focusing on Customer Centricity
⬜ By implementing Lean Portfolio Management
⬜ By shifting from a fixed mindset to a growth mindset
✅ By acting with honesty, authenticity, and transparency

Which of the following is an aspect of the leading-by-example dimension of Lean-Agile Leadership?

⬜ Psychological safety
⬜ Customer centricity
✅ Lifelong learning
⬜ Alignment

What must management do for a successful Agile transformation?

⬜ Send someone to represent management, and then delegate tasks to these individuals
⬜ Change Scrum Masters in the team every two weeks
⬜ Strive to think of adoption as an area they can control
✅ Commit to quality and be the change agent in the system

What is this statement defining: “A series of activities that have proven to be effective in successfully implementing SAFe”?

⬜ Train everyone, launch ARTs
⬜ The SAFe Quickstart Approach
✅ The SAFe Implementation Roadmap
⬜ Essential SAFe

Domain 7: Reaching the SAFe® Tipping Point

What is one common reason an organization starts a SAFe transformation?

✅ There is a ‘burning platform,’ and the company is failing to compete
⬜ There are SAFe-certified employees on staff
⬜ To partner with other Agile leaders in their industry
⬜ Because SAFe is becoming a standard in the industry

What primary reason for change makes it easiest to drive a transformation across the Enterprise?

✅ The existing way of working is inadequate to achieve a new solution in time
⬜ The competition has made this change
⬜ Leadership has mandated this change with a specific completion date
⬜ Customers are asking for changes to delivery processes

According to John Kotter, why is it important to build a guiding coalition?

⬜ It enables better, exploration of customer needs
⬜ It can build connections between Business and IT
⬜ It creates a cross-functional team
✅ It can help lead the transformation

What is one of the primary enablers for Implementing SAFe?

⬜ Prepare for ART Launch
⬜ Coach ART execution
⬜ Enhance the Portfolio
✅ Create a Lean-Agile Center of Excellence (LACE)

Domain 8: Designing the Implementation

Who is part of the development Value Stream?

⬜ Everyone that uses systems to do their work
⬜ Everyone who is part of the operational Value Stream
⬜ Everyone in the organization
✅ Everyone who builds Solutions

There are two types of Value Streams in SAFe. One is the Operational Value Stream. What is the other?

⬜ Solution Value Stream
⬜ Network Value Stream
⬜ Continuous Delivery Value Stream
✅ Development Value Stream

What is one benefit of creating the implementation plan as a three PI rolling roadmap?

⬜ It ensures all implementation plan decisions are centralized
✅ It enables incremental implementation
⬜ It provides leaders with certainty around the implementation plan
⬜ It ensures all capacity is used for implementation activities

Which of the following is a benefit of organizing around Value Streams?

✅ It reduces handoffs and allows for faster delivery
⬜ It is an efficient use of shared services
⬜ It ensures clearly defined roles and responsibilities
⬜ It improves resource utilization

Domain 9: Launching an Agile Release Train

Selecting the first ART for launch is an important step when creating an implementation plan. Which factors should be considered when deciding which ART to launch first?

✅ Significant challenge or opportunity
⬜ Size of the ART
⬜ Organizational change impact
⬜ Geographic distribution

Why is it important to train Product Owners and Product Management before launching the Agile Release Train (ART)?

⬜ To help facilitate, the first PI Planning event
⬜ It will help them determine how to organize the ART
✅ To have a better-prepared ART Backlog for the first PI Planning
⬜ Because training the leaders for the first time should not occur with the teams.

Which of the following must be in place to launch an ART?

⬜ The System Team
✅ An Iteration and PI cadence
⬜ Shared Services
⬜ A strategy for unit testing and test automation

Which option should be the next Agile Release Train (ART) to launch to leverage the full flow of value?

⬜ A train in a different portfolio
✅ A train in the same value stream
⬜ The next train to volunteer
⬜ A train in a different value stream

Why launch an ART using the Quickstart approach?

⬜ It reduces the number of Scrum Masters/Team Coaches required to support the teams
⬜ It allows the teams to reinforce their knowledge by attending SAFe for Teams the day after PI Planning
⬜ It makes it much clearer to stakeholders that waterfall is not a good investment
✅ It increases engagement and focuses everyone all at once with purpose and intent

Domain 10: Coaching ART Execution

A change agent is invited to help an ART where management requires the teams to make big, up-front, and detailed scope commitments for every release. These commitments are not mandated by the external environment. What can the change agent do to best coach the decision makers?

✅ Explain the value of assuming variability; preserving options
⬜ Explain the need to satisfy the committments immediately and improve later
⬜ Explain the benefits of releasing at the end of the PI
⬜ Explain that too much up-front detail demotivates Product Owners

Which of the following is one key performance indicator to check the health of an ART?

⬜ Number of commitments per Iteration
⬜ Number of retrospectives held
⬜ Solution velocity
✅ Predictability measure

When calculating and assessing team PI performance for the ART predictability measure, which statement is true about the actual business value delivered?

⬜ Actual business value can never exceed planned business value
⬜ It includes uncommitted objectives
⬜ It includes miscellaneous work
✅ Actual business value is scored using a modified Fibonacci scale

Domain 11: Enhancing the Portfolio

Which statement is true about multiple Agile Release Train (ART) rollouts?

⬜ ARTS should only be rolled out if their system team has been identified
⬜ ART rollouts should be incremental; one ART should start when another reaches the accelerate step in the Roadmap
✅ ART rollouts can be done sequentially or in parallel
⬜ Only one ART should be rolled out at a time to limit work in process (WIP)

When is the right time to create the Solution Train Engineer (STE) role?

✅ When a large Value Stream has enough Agile Release Trains (ARTs) to launch a Solution Train
⬜ When problems coordinating Agile Release Trains (ARTs) are identified in the Inspect and Adapt (I&A) event
⬜ When the second Value Stream is launched in a portfolio
⬜ When the first Agile Release Train is launched in a large Value Stream

Which SAFe role helps to coordinate between multiple ARTs within a Value Stream?

⬜ Solution Management
⬜ Lean-Agile Center of Excellence
⬜ Enterprise Architect
✅ Solution Train Engineer

Which legacy practice slows the move to Lean Portfolio Management?

⬜ Objective milestones
⬜ Bringing the work to the people
✅ Centralized work intake
⬜ Demand management

Domain 12: Accelerating to Business Agility

Which of the following is a benefit of a community of practice?

⬜ They reduce work in process (WIP)
⬜ They provide an opportunity for managers to be kept up to date on progress
⬜ It reduces the need to have an ART Sync as often
✅ They provide a forum for knowledge sharing

What metric measures the organization’s proficiency in the practices that enable Business Agility?

⬜ Performance
✅ Competency
⬜ Flow
⬜ Outcome

How can an organization gain trust between the business and the development teams?

⬜ Decentralize decision-making to the teams
⬜ Reduce the number of Features
⬜ Ensure development leadership and Epic Owners meet regularly
✅ Deliver predictably

Which of the following is an activity for coaching flow?

⬜ Facilitate a SAFe, Advanced Scrum Master training
✅ Facilitate Value Stream mapping
⬜ Facilitate Value Stream & ART Identification
⬜ Facilitate Strategic Themes creation